How Morsi ruined Egypt

After Morsi was ousted, partly by popular demand, and with SCAF in control with ajudge serving as acting president. However, despite his year in office Morsi did nothing to deal with the array of problems faced by Egyptians, such as mass unemployment, inflation and other substantial economic problems. If Morsi had attended to these problems instead of attempting to appoint Islamist governors, paraonia, angering the judiciary and other related measures he could have not only saved his job but begun the process of bringing Egypt back from the brink.

An article makes the argument that “Despite inheriting intractable political, economic, and social problems, when Morsi ascended to power on June 30, 2012, he had choices — and he chose factional gain, zero-sum politics, and populist demagoguery. In a system without functioning checks and balances, those choices generated increasing levels of polarization, destroying trust and crippling the state. These decisions were a reflection of his hostility to criticism and his and the Muslim Brotherhood’s denigration of the opposition’s role in Egyptian society. In the period prior to this year’s June 30 mass protests on the first anniversary of Morsy’s swearing-in,when concessions and compromise might have found an orderly way out for Egypt, Morsy instead grudgingly offered airy promises and hollow gestures”.

He goes on to argue “Morsy’s 369 days in power were typified by a lack of reform, which alienated activists and reformists; a lack of reconciliation, which blocked any potential outreach to members of the former regime; and narrow, monopolistic governance, which alienated all political forces — including his erstwhile Islamist allies, particularly the al-Nour Party, which abandoned Morsy during his final hours. This reckless approach to power spurred alienation, paralysed governance, and resulted in repression and discontent — and opposition grew”.

The writer makes the point that “Legislatively, Morsy’s government pushed forward restrictive legislation on various fronts, including laws impeding independent labour organizing and interfering in the operation of nongovernmental organizations. His government did little to curtail a spike in prosecutions of speech crimes, including blasphemy cases and those related to insulting the presidency. Further, the criminal justice system was corrupted and used as a political tool in the wake of the extralegal appointment of a handpicked prosecutor general. That appointment was accomplished through Morsy’s dictatorial November 2012 constitutional declaration that temporarily immunised him from any judicial oversight and set the stage for the contentious adoption of a slipshod document as the country’s foundational text.For many, this was the final act in institutionalising Egypt’s political crisis. The acute polarisation made even basic governance impossible and furthered the country’s economic crisis — with rapidly rising unemployment helping to activate opposition within previously quiescent sectors of society. Opposition to Morsy was no longer geographically limited or defined by class; instead it was broadly dispersed geographically, representing a wide spectrum of Egyptian society, including the urban poor and various rural constituencies”.

He goes on to make the interesting point that even as millions of people returned to Tahrir Square to demand Morsi leave office “at that pivotal juncture, Morsy still had options. He, and he alone, could have dialled down the rhetoric and avoided the bloodshed that was to come. Instead, his reckless nonchalance ensured that compromise solutions would not be forthcoming. So Egypt was left with the inevitable: a military ouster and a spiralling street war. An honourable exit for Morsi would have been a recognition of reality. A crippled executive with a tenuous grip on authority who could not govern effectively — even at the peak of his popularity — was no longer in a position to fulfill his role. A negotiated safe exit would have also preserved the Muslim Brotherhood’s political gains and ensured its participation in the design of the transitional stage and upcoming elections”.

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